Electronic banking is growing tremendously for banks and for users. For many users, electronic banking may be an alternate, or even primary, means to perform their banking transactions. With this growth, the banking system architecture required to perform the electronic banking functions has also grown tremendously. Generally, the banking system architecture has been a complex system in which each bank back office within the banking system has its own method, process, or system to perform the transactions.
A bank back office may include one or more regional banking systems, one or more newly acquired banking systems, or one or more Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). Within each method or process for online transactions, the transaction may be processed through a session management area, an online presentation layer, and a functional layer before the transaction is processed at the user's bank. For example, when a user submits a transaction, such as a transfer of money from account A to account B, the transaction is immediately directed to one of the various bank back offices, and the individual bank back office processes the entire transaction through until the final state. In the current architecture, each of these layers is coupled together for each banking application.